Not surprisingly, identity management and authentication topics are high on banks’ agenda. The stakes are high—get it wrong, and you’ll be dealing with unhappy customers or rampant fraud, or both. Furthermore, banks have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to solve for digital identity.
In September 2021, we spoke to executives at leading financial institutions in the UK, Turkey, Spain, and the US, in a roundtable discussion and in individual interviews. We were keen to engage with senior banking leaders and strategic influencers in an open dialogue around current and future strategies of financial institutions for managing customer identity and authentication. We wanted to focus on two main themes:
- How are identity and authentication managed by banks today?
- What is the banks’ vision for managing identity and authentication tomorrow? Which external developments are likely to impact identity management the most, and how?
While best practices in identity proofing and authentication are reasonably well understood, the specific strategies and approaches at financial institutions continue to be shaped by individual circumstances, regulatory requirements, broader market conditions, and customer habits and preferences. Banks are at different levels of Celent’s Identity and Authentication Maturity Model (to view, either create a guest login or sign in.)
Efforts to solve the digital identity challenge are intensifying around the world, led by large individual players, regulators, and industry consortia and partnerships. Banks want to remain “privileged actors” in digital identity but will have to fight off challenges from other players.
